Mendism — Aaron Mendes Official Sitehttp://mendism.com
Life is a brief interruption of eternal non-existenceMon, 12 Feb 2018 20:00:09 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.3Unilever threatens to pull billions in ads from Google and Facebook if they don’t clean up the “swamp”http://mendism.com/2018/02/12/unilever-threatens-to-pull-billions-in-ads-from-google-and-facebook-if-they-dont-clean-up-the-swamp/
http://mendism.com/2018/02/12/unilever-threatens-to-pull-billions-in-ads-from-google-and-facebook-if-they-dont-clean-up-the-swamp/#respondMon, 12 Feb 2018 19:59:07 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=216Continue reading "Unilever threatens to pull billions in ads from Google and Facebook if they don’t clean up the “swamp”"]]>

This is an interesting move by Unilever. I have to say I’m proud of them. I think of them as a conservative company and this impressed me.

Unilever, who spends over $2.5B per year on digital marketing, is sick of their trusted brands showing up next to fake news or even worse, hate news, content through the Google and Facebook platforms.

Taking $2B straight off of Google and Facebook’s bottom lines would be a painful blow for the GOOGL and FB tickers.

Google and Facebook make up 80-90% of the digital advertising spend due to their massive scale, reach, and incredible targeting capabilities. They charge a premium for advertising due to the high quality of the traffic they can drive.

The advertising revenues have resulted in a combined $1.25 trillion, yes, trillion, in shareholder value.

However, the past few years, crap content such as fake news sites, click bait, tabloid “news from around the web” articles, and hate speech, they’ve really fallen from grace.

And because these crap content producers spend so much money, Google and Facebook didn’t put much effort into remedying the situation because it would hurt revenues. And now we have Trump, whether you like him or not, 70% not.

I am pretty sure Google and Facebook were already taking this swamp of fake news seriously, but I applaud Unilever helping to nudge them along. Hopefully more brands will “techlash” against Google and Facebook until they really clean up their act.

However, if you are an investor in Google or Facebook, this will hurt the value of your stock at least for the next few years. I imagine they’d have to pull billions of dollars worth of ads to really clean up the swamp. And that’ll be a painful blow to both revenue and earnings.

Bravo Unilever.

]]>http://mendism.com/2018/02/12/unilever-threatens-to-pull-billions-in-ads-from-google-and-facebook-if-they-dont-clean-up-the-swamp/feed/0The 4 Ts of Angel Investinghttp://mendism.com/2018/01/12/the-4-ts-of-angel-investing/
http://mendism.com/2018/01/12/the-4-ts-of-angel-investing/#respondFri, 12 Jan 2018 18:45:50 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=192Continue reading "The 4 Ts of Angel Investing"]]>There are many formulas for angel investing. This one is very similar to other ones you’ve seen. The only difference is that I came up with a way for each of the 4 pillars to start with the letter T so they are easier to remember.

This is not a complete guide to Angel Investing. There’s a lot more to it. But these 4 things I think are most important.

TAM

Team

Timing

Traction

This is very similar to Jason Calacanis’ 4 questions outlined in his book Angel, which I loved and highly recommend. Although it’s not perfect so I’d combine it with other research.

1. TAM (Total Addressable Market)

There are lots of ways to approach this pillar and there are some inherent components. First, the product has to be great in order to have a large addressable market. Ideally it’s highly innovative, disruptive, or game-changing. Second, the market has to be huge.

It’s important to note that the market doesn’t have to exist yet. You can be creating a new market or adding on to existing market. Or you can just be disrupting an existing market. Either way, the problem you’re solving has to be huge.

You’ll hear different opinions about a huge market. On the low end it’s $1B. On the high end it’s $1T. Personally, I’m only interested in companies that have a TAM of over $100B. My preference though are trillion dollar industries.

Trillion dollar industries are the space where you can get a 100X or 1000X return on your investment. Many of these investments will be moonshot opportunities. Binary. They either kill it and change the world or they completely fail (most fail). That’s why you need to carefully pick up to 50 bets and then there’s a good chance one will hit the moon while the rest fail.

Here’s something else I think is important with TAM. Founders will try to calculate the largest possible TAM in their investor presentations. Here are some tips to cut through the noise and figure out what the real TAM is.

The entire industry in which they play is not the TAM, but many investors and founders will use that as TAM. That’s misleading because it can make it sound like a company has a lot more sales potential than it really does.

Example: Let’s say travel accommodation is a $600B industry. And let’s say I’m starting a hotel price comparison website like Trivago. The TAM for Trivago is not $600B. That’s all hotels, which includes the revenue of the hotels and vacation rentals. Hotels get most of that money. The true TAM for Trivago that I would look at is the total amount of commissions hotels will pay a referral source. That TAM is probably more like 10% of the total hotel TAM.

True TAM in my opinion is total number of potential customers * annual revenue per customer. That is usually much, much smaller than the TAM of a total category.

2. Team

When I’m evaluating a business, I ask myself whether I believe this team has the right combination of personality, skills, intelligence, and drive to take this business all the way. All… the… way.

First, keyword, “TEAM.” If there’s only one person in the company, it’s a little early for me. I like for there to be at least 2 cofounders. One person just isn’t enough to get a business off the ground. Also, one of the founders have to be technical and can code or do the engineering required themselves. The other can be good at operations and execution of other things. I don’t like teams that are outsourcing engineering. In tech, that is a core function and needs to be in house.

Second, the technical team members need to have a background in the field in which the company plays. For example, if it’s a software business heavily dependent on AI, I want that cofounder to have a computer science degree and many years of programming experience with AI. If it’s, say, a hardware business, I want one of the founders to be an electrical engineer or whatever is needed to be expert in that hardware. I also prefer founders who came out of an industry frustrated with legacy solutions and see a way to disrupt it.

Third, the team members need to be at a stage in their lives where they can dedicate the next 5-10 years to this venture. By stage, I don’t mean age. I mean do they have the energy, resources, and time to be fully dedicated? That can be at any age. This can’t be a side gig or a 9-6. They have to live and breath it every moment. I can usually determine this by the way they talk about the business. I can sense when someone has fire in the gut just by the energy and passion they exude when discussing their business.

Fourth, I like to invest in founders that have the rare combination of humility and ambition. People who are arrogant can succeed, but they also can be closed minded because they think they know it all. I like self-aware founders who know there is still so much for them to learn and are open-minded. And who know their strengths and where they need to hire to fill in the gaps.

Fifth, do they know their business down cold? Every metric across every aspect of the business. This can get hard once you have hundreds of people. But early on, they should know everything off the top of their heads. This shows that the founders are detail oriented, meticulous, they are doers, and they really get into the weeds. No professional managers in start ups. Everyone is either coding / building or selling. No bosses, supervisors, or middle managers are needed at this stage.

Six, resourceful and scrappy. In order to get a tech start up off the ground, you have to overcome near impossible and insurmountable odds. As Elon Musk said, being an entrepreneur is “like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” So in order for a founder to succeed, they have to be able to do more with less. This involves being very resourceful and scrappy, finding ways to get things done with limited resources, time, and money. And being able to break through walls and jump hurdles that would trip up the average person. And not ever getting discouraged when things don’t go smoothly, because they won’t. It’s always a bumpy ride… always.

Seven, I like missionary versus mercenary founders. I like founders that believe they are going to change the world and aren’t just in it for the money or being opportunistic. Mercenaries can be successful, but missionaries change the world. And only businesses that change the world provide the outsized returns an angel investor needs to make it worth the risk.

3. Timing

The market has to be ready for this type of product or service. And the technology has to be there. Timing is a primary driver of a business’ success.

You’ll want to ask questions like, why hasn’t this been done before? And why is now the right time? What’s the perfect storm of market and technological readiness that makes now the right time?

Here’s an example: Netflix could never have succeed with its video streaming business ten years ago. The IT infrastructure and bandwidth just weren’t there. But now they are and that’s why almost no one gets their DVDs mailed anymore and their streaming videos are a staple in every home.

The market was not ready for messengers like Snap, Instagram, and WhatsApp 10-15 years ago. The generation that adopted those technologies were in diapers at that time. The adults 10-15 years ago were fine with email and not likely to adopt messengers. Now you have every millennial and teenager communicating almost exclusively through messengers.

In hardware, it’s often the case that a core technology required to pull it off simply didn’t exist until fairly recently, like 3D printing. Now that you can 3D print components, XYZ business makes sense, where it wouldn’t have 10 years ago.

Another example can be regulatory. For example, the FCC just made military grade high resolution radar frequencies available to private businesses. In the past, it was only allowed to be used by the military. A business making high def radar for self driving cars could not have existed 10 years ago. Also, there were no self-driving cars 10 years ago.

4. Traction

For me to invest, the company has to have some early traction. I don’t invest in ideas, PowerPoints or business plans. I invest in companies that have a working prototype and early customers or users.

This is what Angel Investor Jason Calacanis calls the “Goldilocks Zone.” Just before they’ve started to take off, but after they’ve gotten a product to market. Not too hot, not too cold.

For B2B businesses, I look for a product in the market with paying beta customers. And there needs to be metrics on how much money it saved or made the customers. If they haven’t proven that the product adds value, it’s too early for me.

There’s a concept called “Product Market Fit” that is commonly used in Silicon Valley. It means customers love it so much they’d be angry if it went away. And it solves a pain so acute, that they’re willing to bear with the bugs and issues with an early product. And they are willing to pay money for it.

Basically, from a product standpoint, you have to have found your footing, have a product that meets the needs of your customers, and have reference customers and performance metrics to demonstrate the value your product provides.

We’re not talking a lot of customers here. For a large sale, it would be 5-10 fortune 500 companies. For a lower cost product, I’d want to see several hundred businesses using it. In today’s low cost start up environment, scrappy and resourceful founders should be able to drum up this early business themselves without much capital. Otherwise they probably don’t have the scrappy qualities I’d look for in a founding team.

For consumer, I like to see thousands of paying customers or tens of thousands of users if the product is free. And I like to see retention and engagement metrics. If they don’t have any metrics on things like cost to acquire a customer (CAC), retention rates, engagement rates, and revenue per customer (if relevant), then they are too early and not in the Goldilocks Zone.

And again, in today’s low cost start up environment, scrappy and resourceful founders should be able to generate thousands of customers themselves without much capital. Otherwise they probably don’t have the qualities I’d look for in a founding team like I said above.

There are some exceptions I will make on the paying customers front. For software, it’s a must. For physical products, whether it’s agricultural drones, delivery robots, synthetic food, satellite technology, there is usually a longer time-frame for being able to have a product that is customer ready. For these businesses I look for 3 criteria. 1) They have to have a working proof of concept that just requires some refining to get to market and 2) if they do get to market, the opportunity is absolutely game changing to the trillion dollar scale and 3) LOIs or pilot customers lined up for when the tech is really ready. Lining up pilot customers validates that the product or technology is truly novel.

Hardware and physical world businesses are much more binary than software. With software you can be more nimble, pivot, and solve problems much more quickly. With hardware, it either works or it doesn’t. So, to overcome the low likelihood of success, the upside has to be huge.

For example, I recently invested in a 3D metal printing business. They have all the things I want to see: engineers as the founders, scrappy, smart, working prototype, ambitious, yet humble. They have some technical hurdles to overcome that will take a while to work out. But they should work in theory. If it works out, it’s world changing. Metal 3D printing will be 10X cheaper, faster, and more reliable than ever before. And they’ll have patents and IP to protect it.

Every manufacturer in the world from auto, space, electronics, and computing will want to become a customer. It’s a truly $1T category and the company could quickly become a $100B business.

This is what we call a moonshot opportunity. But the opportunity is so big, and the tech is far enough along that it’s not just a concept, that I think it’s worth making a bet because of the outsized upside if it works.

Also, while they don’t have paying customers, they do have pilot clients lined up waiting to do beta tests when they are ready. That’s a really good sign and I’d want to at least have that for this type of start up.

Most marketing content sucks. It’s either too long, doesn’t specify a clear, compelling benefit, or doesn’t address the right audience. Here’s how to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. This applies to B2B, B2C, your own site, or a product listing on another merchant’s site.

1. Know Your Audience.

This should be easy for marketers, but for some reason they often miss the mark.

You get 1 second to grab someone’s attention.

Make sure you are really, really speaking to the audience and what’s important to them.

Pause before writing anything and think very hard about how they view the world, what it feels like to be them, and what’s likely to be important to them.

2. Keep it Short and Simple (K.I.S.S.).

No one reads anymore.

A Tweet is about the longest any marketing copy should be.

If it’s any longer, put it into one sentence bullets. Also, rather than just skipping lines, use numbers or bullets.

It makes it easier for the brain to process for some reason.

3. Focus on Benefits.

Many marketers assume the benefits of their products are obvious.

But that’s because they are already educated about it.

Never assume the benefits of your product are obvious.

A benefit is always increasing something good or decreasing something bad.

Whether it’s happiness, costs, revenue, or pain, tell your audience what the benefit is and then briefly how your product brings them that benefit.

4. Use Simple Graphics.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

It’s much easier for people who process a simple graphic that gets the message across.

If chosen well, it can also elicit emotions in the audience which can inspire them to want to do business with you.

5. Write & Design for Mobile.

Most Internet browsing is now done on smartphones.

This is especially the case for busy people with money, who are generally your target customer.

People’s attention spans are even SHORTER on their phones. Content needs to be short sound bites like little Tweets.

6. AB Test EVERYTHING

If you’re not AB testing, you’re leaving money on the table… period.

Also, have someone senior periodically review the content. They typically will be able to see things and make suggestions that more junior marketers aren’t able to see (yet).

Last week, all of the sudden, my 6-year-old son had to have a “fidget spinner.” It’s basically a ball-bearing spinner (like a top) that spins for over 2 minutes and you can do tricks with it. Turns out by the end of the week, pretty much everyone in his class had one. And people who didn’t have one yet were waiting for theirs to arrive in the mail. My co-workers’ kids also all have them now.

It occurred to me that this could be a part of a rare phenomenon where an unlikely and unpredictable product line just goes viral, like the pet rock or beanie babies (if we you were alive back then).

As a leader in e-commerce measurement, we’re in the unique position to actually quantify the volume happening with such trends. It’s a use case of our e-commerce insights suite that I think manufacturers should be using a lot more: identify new product trends before your competition.

Our e-commerce data confirms that fidget spinners are going viral right now. Over 30 million (projected) searches in our data last month! On Google Trends, there is almost as much search volume for ‘fidget spinner’ as there is for ‘Trump’.

In fact, based on search volume across major retailers like Amazon, fidget spinners are the fastest growing, high volume product line ever. Well, at least since we’ve been measuring e-commerce, which goes back to early 2014. The term ‘fidget spinner’ reached 1 million searches in the least amount of time. Between January and February 2017, search volume for ‘fidget spinner’ quadrupled. By the end of April, ‘fidget spinner’ had more than 25 million searches. We excluded smaller volume search terms from the analysis.

This massive growth in searches matches the trend of units sold and total sales of fidget spinners over time. The total number of fidget spinners sold online in April is 127 times greater than the number sold in January 2017. The amount of sales generated from fidget spinners in April online is 55 times greater than the total sales were in January 2017. No matter how you spin it, this product is experiencing massive growth!

For frame of reference, Fidget Spinner beat out top search terms by 300% including staples like laptops and the new Nintendo Switch.

Incidentally, I think I’ll start a “curtain” business. I had no idea people were searching so much for curtains online. I would not have guessed that to be a top 10 search.

]]>http://mendism.com/2017/05/09/fidget-spinners-go-viral-become-fastest-growing-product-online-ever-grows-2000-in-3-months-to-over-25m-in-online-sales/feed/0CPG E-Commerce Surged 36% to over $10B in the U.S. in 2016http://mendism.com/2017/04/28/cpg-e-commerce-surged-36-to-over-10b-in-the-u-s-in-2016/
http://mendism.com/2017/04/28/cpg-e-commerce-surged-36-to-over-10b-in-the-u-s-in-2016/#respondFri, 28 Apr 2017 15:19:19 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=173Continue reading "CPG E-Commerce Surged 36% to over $10B in the U.S. in 2016"]]>

In July of 2016 we predicted based on 1H 2016 sales that consumer packaged goods (CPG) e-commerce sales would surpass $10 billion in the U.S. with 40% YOY growth. We were correct.

NEW YORK – March 2, 2017 – 1010data, Inc., the only integrated platform that combines self-service data management and analytics at scale with ready-to-use data, today announced the results of its 2016 Online Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry Report. For the first time since 1010data began tracking this market, online CPG sales across key categories surpassed $10 billion. Of the CPG categories tracked by 1010data, the largest ones were health supplements, pet care and cosmetics, each of which generated more than $1 billion in sales.

Total revenue for key CPG categories in 2016 was $10.4 billion, up from $7.6 billion in 2015. The 2016 data showed a nearly even split in revenue between the first and second halves of the year, implying that consumers are buying CPG products online year-round and not just during the holiday season. Key findings from 1010data’s report include:

Health Supplements Was the Biggest Online CPG Category – With $2.6 billion in sales, health supplements represented 25 percent of total key CPG category sales and exceeded the size of the next biggest category by $1 billion.

Pet Care Grew 67 Percent Year Over Year – Pet care was the fastest-growing category among categories with at least $500 million in sales. Driven by specialty pet care sites with brands like Chewy and Drs. Foster & Smith, “natural” products experienced the most growth.

Laundry & Dish and Cleaners Continued Growing Due to Pantry Box and Subscription Models – Of categories with less than $500M in sales, laundry & dish and cleaners experienced the most growth, because pantry box and subscription options from companies like Amazon, Boxed and Jet have enabled customers to conveniently order and re-order products.

1010data’s report also notes that online CPG sales across key categories grew twice as fast as total ecommerce sales, which had a 16 percent year over year growth rate in 2016. Increasingly, more online retailers are offering two-day shipping and subscription services, which is driving the acceleration in CPG sales growth.

By analyzing top search terms, 1010data found that most consumers who buy CPG products online started their search on Amazon. The top search term on-site across all CPG ecommerce sites was “prime pantry,” powerfully demonstrating the mass appeal of subscription services online.

“With CPG sales hitting $10 billion in sales online across key categories, online ecommerce is clearly no longer an afterthought for brands,” said Jed Alpert, Senior Vice President of Marketing at 1010data. “All CPG brands need to understand how consumers are shopping in their categories and consider how ecommerce can help deliver a better experience and complement in-store sales.”

]]>http://mendism.com/2017/04/28/cpg-e-commerce-surged-36-to-over-10b-in-the-u-s-in-2016/feed/0China and Tibet Triphttp://mendism.com/2016/10/25/china-and-tibet-trip/
http://mendism.com/2016/10/25/china-and-tibet-trip/#respondTue, 25 Oct 2016 03:36:13 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=169Continue reading "China and Tibet Trip"]]>Amazing time in Tibet and China with the lovely Maggie and friends Andrew & Nicole, David, Dan, and all our dads Scott (mine), Bruce (Andrew’s), and Sheldon (David’s and Dan’s). Man what an adventure. Totally different world over there. Such a shame more of both Eastern and Western cultures can’t mingle more and know so little about each other.

]]>http://mendism.com/2016/10/25/china-and-tibet-trip/feed/0Conversation with Born Again Christian Uber Driverhttp://mendism.com/2016/09/13/conversation-with-born-again-christian-uber-driver/
http://mendism.com/2016/09/13/conversation-with-born-again-christian-uber-driver/#respondTue, 13 Sep 2016 11:57:18 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=161Continue reading "Conversation with Born Again Christian Uber Driver"]]>Born Again! The Holy Spirit is Now In Me!

Man, this was an unexpected and wildly entertaining Uber drive to the San Diego airport. After about 5 minutes, he launched right into it. I spent the whole time trying to steer him toward a rational argument that I could actually understand. It never happened. This happened instead.

I have come away thinking that certain religious people are so brainwashed that they are incapable if even hearing a rational argument to the contrary. It’s like the critical thinking part of their brain is completely turned off.

I respect that people should worship however they want. But when they preach, I think they should be better listeners and pay more attention to their audience.

Below is my recount of the conversation based on memory.

Al (Uber Driver): That would spread the gospel in that nation of Israel, but because they turned and did not recognize the Messiah, they continued in their evil ways, he has put them aside for a period of time, but he always has a remnant of believers as he says to Elijah, I have 7,000. There’s always been a remnant of Jewish believers that have faith in Yeshua and his words. Until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, in the end, then all Israel will be saved. The Gentiles are to make the Jews jealous for their own God.

Me: Here’s an important question in my opinion. I think in order to have the conversation that we’re having, talking about the Scriptures is really cool, but you’re using Scriptures to-

Al (Uber Driver): I’m using the Hebrew.

Me: You’re using things that were written thousands of years ago as your arguments. What I’m asking for is something outside of Scriptures, something that’s more recent or some kind of evidence that-

Al (Uber Driver): The Jews always look for signs and wonders, is what they ask. Jesus did all the miracles and everything and they still don’t.

Me: We don’t know that. That was 2,000 years ago. The most recent Scripture that they found was 300 years after that.

Me: The stories of Jesus were written down probably 50-100 years after he died, at a time that they didn’t even know that the world was round and what caused disease or what caused lightning and thunder and didn’t know what stars were. We’re expecting these people to have recorded properly-

Al (Uber Driver): They were eye witnesses and they were all Jewish.

Me: You don’t know that.

Al (Uber Driver): It says that in Scriptures.

Me: That was 2,000 years ago. Why don’t you trust the Egyptian books from 2,000 years ago. They have a totally different story.

Al (Uber Driver): They worshiped a pagan God.

Me: How do you know that your Scripture is the right one.

Al (Uber Driver): Because my faith, I believe in the Holy Spirit.

Me: Why did you pick faith in that religion versus another one?

Al (Uber Driver): It’s not a religion.

Me: Whatever you want to call it, why did you pick it to have faith in it?

Al (Uber Driver): I don’t use religion or religious because those people don’t know Yeshua as their own-

Me: I hear you. You want to call it faith?

Al (Uber Driver): Everything points, Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Mormonism, all these isms point to one thing, that you can be saved by your works. Even the Muslims, you ask any Muslim, I have Muslims. I said how are you going to enter in the Kingdom of God which is called [inaudible 00:02:54]? From my good works outweigh my bad works. A true Biblical Christianity is based on only one thing and it’s based on faith alone.

Me: Right. Help me understand how you chose this-

Al (Uber Driver): I didn’t choose it. God chose me before the foundation of the world.

Me: How do you know?

Al (Uber Driver): Because his Spirit lives in me. That’s my faith. That’s my faith. The Spirit of the living God is in me. As he places that Spirit in you-

Me: How do you know the Spirit’s in you?

Al (Uber Driver): Because his Spirit bears witness with mine that I am the sons of the living God.

Me: How do you know that?

Al (Uber Driver): Because the Scriptures tell me and my spirit inside, that I have a future and my future is eternal.

Me: Is it a feeling? Do you feel the Spirit?

Al (Uber Driver): It’s not a feeling. It’s the Spirit in me convicts me. It tells me, it teaches me.

Me: You feel like there’s a Spirit inside of you.

Al (Uber Driver): The Spirit of the living God.

Me: The Spirit of the living God is inside of you.

Al (Uber Driver): Yes.

Me: Okay. I’m asking how you know that.

Al (Uber Driver): That Spirit gives me faith, that Yeshua Ha-Mashiach was the Mashiach, the anointed one, the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world that we could be holy and blameless. All the sacrifices in the Old Testament could only do one thing. They could cover the sins of the people but they could never take away sin. Abraham, before he was circumcised, because he’s the father of the Gentiles, too, was by faith he was reckoned as righteous before a Holy God.

Me: Right. Let’s stick to the present. We don’t know. I don’t know.

Al (Uber Driver): If you don’t believe the authority of the Scriptures, the Scriptures overwhelmingly, all the ones that are in the canon, point to the Savior. The old testament-

Me: It’s not that I don’t believe the Scriptures. It is, but it’s because-

Al (Uber Driver): The only reason that I believe the Scriptures is because the Holy Spirit-

Me: How would we go about confirming … How can we detect that the Holy Spirit’s really in you and that it’s not just in your head?

Al (Uber Driver): The fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, joy. How can I love? I always have had a love for the Jewish people. God put that in my heart and now it becomes more evident. How can I love my enemy if I don’t have the spirit of God living in me? My nature by birth is evil. It’s corrupt, it’s separated from the love of God. Unless the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and it draws you and you repent and you’re sealed with the Holy Spirit God places his Spirit in you to live with you, that’s what David cried when he sinned.

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon people, didn’t live in them until Christ died and then he said the Comforter would come but David said, Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. I grievously sinned, please don’t. When the Spirit is in you, then your eyes are opened to the truth. You can make decisions that are pleasing to God. Before that, it says all your righteousnesses are filthy rags. Everything you do, because in our heart, the motive is by nature corrupt. That’s what happened, the pronouncement when Adam sinned. He was our judicial head. Messiah was the second man. He was the overcomer. I can only share with you the love I have because the Spirit’s in me. Normal man is not going to-

Me: How would we go about detecting that?

Al (Uber Driver): You have to first of all really read the Scriptures slowly and see what the Scriptures are saying. I would start in the Old Testament.

Me: I’ve read them.

Al (Uber Driver): I would ask for illumination by the Holy Spirit. I’ll pray that the Lord will pen your eyes to the gospel.

Me: I would love that.

Al (Uber Driver): I would love to sit down with you in the Scriptures and go through them.

Me: I read the Scriptures.

Al (Uber Driver): I read the Scriptures when I was young growing up 100 times. I went to Sunday School. I had people praying for me. I was a complete rebel but when God’s Spirit came and convicted me and said this is the day of salvation.

Me: Why isn’t God more explicit? Why thousands of years ago did he come out in human form and talk to us but now he doesn’t do that anymore?

Al (Uber Driver): God revealed himself through the second person of the triune Godhead, Jesus, Messiah. He came for one purpose.

Me: That was 2,000 years ago. Why doesn’t he come again and remind us?

Al (Uber Driver): It says he died once for all. That was the sacrifice that was accepted.

Me: If we’re all his children-

Al (Uber Driver): Why was the sacrifice accepted? Because he came as a human. He was virgin born. There was no seed of man to corrupt him. He lived a righteous holy life. He didn’t even start his rabbinical work until he was 30, like a rabbi and then he performed miracles. He preached I and the Father are one, and there’s salvation only through me. He came as the lamb slain before the foundation of the world that we could be holy and blameless. There had to be a sacrifice acceptable. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament only pointed to Yeshua because they could never take away the sins.

Me: That doesn’t answer the question. Why won’t God come back and make it clear?

Al (Uber Driver): He’s coming back. He’s coming back as the Judge.

Me: Why is he waiting so long? Why doesn’t he just do it today?

Al (Uber Driver): Until the fullness of the Gentiles come in and then he saves all Israel.

Me: Why does he do it that way? Why doesn’t he just save us now? He can do anything he wants. He’s God.

Al (Uber Driver): Before the foundation of the world he appointed people to salvation until all those come in through his permissive will, he allows Satan, who is the prince and the power of the sons at work in the disobedience, the one who’s the ruler of the servant, until-

Me: Why is he playing this game?

Al (Uber Driver): He’s not playing a game because he chose people before the foundation of the world.

Me: Wy would he do that? Why would he put us in the situation?

Al (Uber Driver): Because God is sovereign and he can do as he wants, he does as he pleases. He’s the beginning, the last, he is the I Am. He’s the only one.

Me: He doesn’t seem like somebody you’d want to love. He seems like he’s playing games with us.

Al (Uber Driver): Oh no, he’s sovereign in all his ways. God is not obligated to save anybody. The just end of man is death because of sin, but God in his gracious mercy-

Me: He doesn’t sound gracious to me. He’s letting all these people die and suffer.

Al (Uber Driver): Every man, no man should be saved because of sin. It separates them from a holy God, but because he decreed before the foundation of the world that he’d have a people holy and blameless in love, he allows this we think [inaudible 00:10:11] are bad until all his sheep come in. My sheep hear my voice and they come to me.

Until the fullness, you see right now, I’ll give you a great book on eschatology but what you see right now is the final consummation of the ages are quickly coming to be because Israel is finally back in the land as it says in the Old Testament in Isaiah and Jeremiah. I will bring my people back into the land from the 4 corners of the world, [inaudible 00:10:43], and they will come in unbelief. Their eyes will be blinded.

Right now, the gay capital of the world is Tel Aviv. It’s not San Francisco or New York and they’re shaking their fist at a holy God. They’re back in the land in unbelief. What the next event on the prophetic calender, as it says in Daniel is that they will sign a covenant of death. That covenant of death is a protection. It’s confirmed and it says in the Greek and the Hebrew, and it’s a strong covenant, they’ll be protected for 3.5 years and then 1,260 days Antichrist walks into the temple and desecrates the temple, demands worship, he goes after the Jews first.

Then he goes after the Jews that he [inaudible 00:11:32] as it says in Zechariah, 1/3 will be saved. They’ll run into hiding. Then he goes after the offspring of the Jew because the gospel’s from the Jew first and that’s the Goyim and the Gentiles and that’s the true believers and that’s the body of Christ, the church which is made up right now of Jew and Gentile. The Gentiles are being grafted into the Olive Tree. The Olive Tree is Israel. God has to fulfill his word because it says that God is trustworthy is faithful. You know when the Reformation occurred, right?

Me: Not sure.

Al (Uber Driver): Martin Luther and all that.

Me: Oh yeah.

Al (Uber Driver): They broke from the Catholic Church and declared that solo scriptura that salvation is by grace alone from faith alone in Christ alone or Yeshua. What happened was when that reformation occurred it was only a reformation that dealt with the salvivic work or the salvation. These writers that were influenced by Augustine, they were what they call amillenialists. Amillenial means that God is done with Israel.

Only the Jew and Gentile, the church are Christ. This caused great continued persecution for the Jew. Let’s put it aside, the Inquisition and all these other things. God miraculously with the Jewish people, particularly in Germany they were the bankers, the lawyers, the physicians, the gifted musicians, he protected them and made a remnant of believers. Now we’re at the end of the age and what happens is this. 2/3 of the Jews will be destroyed and go into everlasting hell, but 1/3 will be preserved by fire.

Me: How is that love? Where’s the love of sending 2/3?

Al (Uber Driver): That is love. The love is that he would save anybody. At the end there’s what’s called the sheep and goat judgement before God’s kingdom comes on earth which the Jewish people were asking when it came the first time is these Goyim will appear before Yeshua and they’ll say Lord, Lord, why do we [inaudible 00:13:52] my kingdom? Because you fed my sheet they will protect these Jewish people. There’s a highway to holiness, believe it or not, it says in the Old Testament, that these Jews will flee into parts of Egypt, Edom, and even Syria and they’ll be protected divinely by God.

When Yeshua comes again, there’s first the rapture of the church, Jews and Gentiles, but the Jews that remain, he comes again, he goes first to Basra where the 144,000, the first fruits, the 12 tribes, the virgin men are sealed. He comes on a 3 day journey back to the Mount of Olives and as he walks back, the Jews that were survived will join him on that journey. Then when they all get to the Mount of Olives, it says that the Jews person, the ones that survive, look on Messiah and they will wail tribe by tribe, person by person for Yeshua the one they’ve pierced. Everything in God’s plan is perfect because no man should be saved because of sin.

Me: Why would God make people that sin?

Al (Uber Driver): God didn’t make people that sin. Sin came through the rebellion of Satan.

Me: Didn’t everything come from God including Satan?

Al (Uber Driver): He created them with a free will.

Me: Do we truly have free will if God wants us to worship him?

Al (Uber Driver): No, we have a bondage of the will because of sin, but when the angels-

Me: What do you mean by sin?

Al (Uber Driver): Sin is anything that’s a front to God’s holy word.

Me: He created us in a way where we were highly likely to go against his word it sounds like?

Al (Uber Driver): They weren’t created that way. He created free will but that free will-

Me: He created free will that was likely to not listen to-

Al (Uber Driver): God in his foreknowledge and his omniscience knew that man would sin. That’s why he provides-

Me: He probably knows what’s going to happen in 100 years.

Al (Uber Driver): Of course he does. He allows it because of his permissive will in completing the plan that he established.

Me: Why does he have a plan? If he’s so powerful, why would we even be significant to him?

Al (Uber Driver): The angels that sinned with Satan, they have no chance at salvation. They are condemned.

Me: Why would he do that to them?

Al (Uber Driver): Because they went against a holy God.

Me: He created them. It’s his fault.

Al (Uber Driver): It’s not his fault. He created them.

Me: It is his fault. Everything that he created is his fault. If he’s all powerful he should have been able to foresee.

Al (Uber Driver): It’s not his fault. He created them blameless with free will but they aborted that free will by turning against him. It says in Isaiah that he wants to be like God. He wants to ascend to the heaven and I will be greater than God. That’s what happens. You’ll see here coing. It’s interesting that … I’d love to get together with you sometimes and go through this stuff.

Me: Yeah. I appreciate that. It’s not something that I want to do. I appreciate the gift, but I think you should give it to someone that’s going to be more receptive to this message.

Al (Uber Driver): Most Jewish people like yourself, they get so mad.

Me: I’m not mad. I think it’s an interesting conversation.

Al (Uber Driver): When they read the Scriptures, God opens their hearts and they see that they’re helpless, hopeless, lost before a holy God and there’s nothing they can do. Those that see that and understand that Messiah was a sacrifice, repent of their sins. The immediate things is they have a joy and they have an irresistible … When the Lord opened my eyes, my love for the Scriptures, I couldn’t stop reading the Scriptures day and night, which I-

Me: Are you sure? I don’t want to take this from you, man. It looks like you’ve had it for a while.

Al (Uber Driver): I’ve got many of hose. I give them out to Jewish people in the car here all the time.

Me: Okay. As long as it’s-

Al (Uber Driver): This guy on Saturday, he goes, I never thought of it that way. Let me at least take a look at it.

Me: I read everything. I’m happy to read it.

Al (Uber Driver): If you really want to read, I have the way of salvation in there. The Scriptures are in the first 2-3 pages and you can go to those Scriptures and take a look at what it says. That really ties it together. I’m going to pray for you. I love you.

Me: I appreciate that.

Al (Uber Driver): I just appreciate you-

Me: I would like-

Al (Uber Driver): The Gospel is to the Jew first but we’re being grafted in. We’re the ones that should be thankful to the Jewish people for bringing the Scriptures to us.

Me: Thank you sir. It’s been a very interesting conversation.

]]>http://mendism.com/2016/09/13/conversation-with-born-again-christian-uber-driver/feed/0Feelings = Facts According to Republicanshttp://mendism.com/2016/07/27/feelings-facts-according-to-republicans/
http://mendism.com/2016/07/27/feelings-facts-according-to-republicans/#respondWed, 27 Jul 2016 03:36:40 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=156Continue reading "Feelings = Facts According to Republicans"]]>I don’t support any political parties. Tribalism is the primary cause of violence and injustice. I dislike the D and R platforms, but for different reasons. This short video by John Oliver explains one of the reasons why I think Republican politicians are evil, corrupt, liars and idiots.

They basically admit that facts don’t matter and they are OK playing to peoples’ feelings regardless of what is actually true.

]]>http://mendism.com/2016/07/27/feelings-facts-according-to-republicans/feed/0What Amazon’s Press Release Didn’t Tell You About Prime Dayhttp://mendism.com/2016/07/19/what-amazons-press-release-didnt-tell-you-about-prime-day/
http://mendism.com/2016/07/19/what-amazons-press-release-didnt-tell-you-about-prime-day/#respondTue, 19 Jul 2016 18:02:53 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=153Continue reading "What Amazon’s Press Release Didn’t Tell You About Prime Day"]]>Amazon’s second annual Prime Day came back with a vengeance. Last year, customers complained about a lack of enticing deals and limited availability on hot products to such a degree that the hashtag #PrimeDayFail started trending. As a result, Amazon promised to not disappoint their beloved Prime customers this time.

That promise paid off: Amazon announced that this was their biggest day ever; Prime Day sales increased 300% since last year. Amazon, however, left out specific information about which products, brands and categories won the day. Using 1010data’s Market Insights, we’re going to fill you in on everything that was not released by Amazon. We looked at the top 1000 items based on units sold and here’s what we uncovered.

]]>http://mendism.com/2016/07/19/what-amazons-press-release-didnt-tell-you-about-prime-day/feed/0Short Film Written by Artificial Intelligencehttp://mendism.com/2016/06/12/short-film-written-by-artificial-intelligence/
http://mendism.com/2016/06/12/short-film-written-by-artificial-intelligence/#respondSun, 12 Jun 2016 19:13:37 +0000http://mendism.com/?p=148Hilarious, profound, ridiculous, spooky, and indicative of the current state of machine learning and natural language processing. We have a long way to go!